106 TRANSCAUCASIA. 



wliicli Tiflis is subject from the hills above. After any 

 heavy rain, torrents pour down every street, and we were 

 told it was no unusual thing for children to be drowned in 

 the middle of the city. We were next taken to the prin- 

 cipal covered bazaar (an arcade about the size of the 

 Burlington), where the goods exposed for sale are mostly 

 European. Below the castle, and between it and a com- 

 manding spur of the opposite hills, also fortified, the Kur 

 is so closely confined between high banks as to be crossed 

 by two bridges of a single span. Tall houses, with 

 balconies over the water, are built on either shore, and the 

 river, beaten back and turned at a sharp angle by the 

 right-hand bank, rushes away with a fine swirl of water, 

 which must put a stop to all navigation. Wood is brought 

 down as far as Tiflis in large timber rafts like those of the 

 Rhine. We often admired the adroitness of the steerers, 

 but the Kur is not easy to navigate, and accidents some- 

 times happen. Near Gori we had seen a crowd on the 

 river-ba.nk, and been told that a raft had capsized, and two 

 men were drowned. On the left bank of the river we 

 visited an interesting old church inside the fort I have 

 mentioned, and a large building — partly used as a ware- 

 house, partly as offices by Persian traders. We returned 

 by the new bridge, a handsome stone structure of several 

 arches, at one end of which stands a statue of the Prince 

 Woronzoff, who did so much for Tiflis, Odessa, and the 

 Crimea. 



We went twice to the Opera, a pretty house in Moresque 

 style, and heard ' La Traviata ' and ' Faust ' very fairly 

 performed by an Italian company, but what amused us 

 most was a farce, in which an English tourist played the 

 principal part. He was drawn, not after real life, but 

 after the caricatures of the boulevards, immensely tall, 

 enveloped in a plaid, and with long sandy whiskers. 



